


There is a monster under the bed (and he’s not even the worst one)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [30]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon, F/M, Iron Man 1, PTSD, Pepper Worries, Pre-Relationship, Tony has bad dreams, they’re just trying to make it better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 12:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15685416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She watches him die.Pepper can see it all the time, awake and dreaming, flashing behind her eyelids every time she dares to close them, the way the arc reactor had flickered and died and threatened to not come back to life, how she thought the great Tony Stark had met his match once and for all.The worst part is that it would have been her fault.She’s the one who blew up the arc reactor, after all.





	There is a monster under the bed (and he’s not even the worst one)

**Author's Note:**

> I just got Inifinity War on DVD this morning and I already watched it, and holy heck guys, it’s so much more beautiful than I remembered.

She watches him die.

Tony keeps promising her that he is fine, but she cannot push it out of her mind- Stane in his giant metal suit chasing after her, Tony screaming at her to blow the arc reactor even though it would kill him, kill him just so he knows for sure that Stane cannot hurt her, the way that the blue light shining from his chest had flickered and died and she thought it would never come back to life.

 _It would have been your fault,_ Pepper thinks to herself, the way she always does when she tries to close her eyes for a moment of rest and sees the scene play out against the back of her eyelids.  Tony has tried to experiment with ways to survive independently of the reactor, but for the moment, she is glad that it is there.  Pepper knows that he finds it to be an ugly thing, but for her, all that shining light means that he’s alive.  _That’s why this bothers you so much.  It was his orders but it was your choice to hit that button and blow the room to kingdom come.  If he had died -and both you and Tony know it was only a fluke that he didn’t die, just the luck of how he had been sprawled at the edge- it would have been on you._

Pepper can’t take that guilt, not even in a what-if.  She had fought so hard to get him back, and then she had almost let him slip through her fingers because she was willing to let Tony throw himself down on the altar to pay for other people’s crimes.

( _And really, shouldn’t she know better?  Hasn’t she seen, this past month more than any other, how easy Tony finds it to cast aside anyone else’s guilt and heap it on his own shoulders instead, how little worth he holds for his own life?  He thinks he is indestuctible.  And now, thanks to Stane and his kill order and what Tony had to do in order to make it out alive, the whole world is just dying to be the one to prove him wrong.)_

”Tony.”  Pepper pushed open the door to the workshop.  “Tony, are you in here?”

She should not be down there.  Tony had put it on lockdown the moment that they got back from the hospital and disappeared into it, coming up for fresh mugs of coffee and to make sure that she is still alright.   _I’m sorry,_ He had said, hand on her cheek, thumb reaching up to graze over where the glass had cut into the skin around her eye and the star shaped scab that had formed there.   _I just have some things I need to handle.  Things I need to work through on my own.  You get that, don’t you?_

Pepper told him that she did understand and that was the truth, but that hadn’t meant she liked it.  If Pepper had her way, she woiuldn’t let him out of her sights again.  

(Though maybe he knew that, too.  He did keep coming up to the kitchen awful frequently, considering he had a coffee maker down in his lab.)

She just needs to check.  Just needs to see him and then she can leave and Tony never even needs to know.  And even if he did find out, he would understand, he has to understand that this whole mess has been hard on her, too.

He doesn’t answer her when she calls and for a moment Pepper thinks that he has not been down there at all, like he took the suit for a run and didn’t bother to tell her, but then she rounds the corner of the desk and sees him sprawled out across the couch.  It’s the first time she had caught him asleep since he came home from Afghanistan.  For all she knew, it might have been the first time he  _let_ himself sleep, now that Stane was gone and they could all be safe again.

Tony’s covered up by blankets, but the arc reactor still shines through them.  He cannot cover it up no matter how hard he tries to pretend that it is not there, and even though Pepper likes to be able to make sure that he is alright with no more than a glance, she cannot stand the fact that he is hurting.   _Like choking on rust,_ he had explained it to her, when she had finally gathered the nerve to ask if it hurt.   _Like being crushed by a million pounds of weight and knowing that no one is ever coming to pull you away._

 She had been trying to be quiet, creeping to him through all the dark, but it still woke him up.

She should have known better.

He always seems to keep one eye open.

”Pepper?”  He had caught her by the wrist and loosens his grip almost immediately, though he deosn’t really let go, just let’s his fingers trace along her arm as he slumps back down onto the couch.  “What time is it?”

”Late.”  She does not know how to tell him why she is standing here.  Pepper is not really even sure that she can think up an answer.  She just knows that she cannot tell him the truth.  “I’m sorry.”  He hasn’t asked for an explanation yet but he would, he always does, people like him want to know everything.  “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

He doesn’t tell her it’s okay, just rubs the rest of the sleep from his eyes and blinks up at her.  “What are you doing here?”

_Watching you sleep in the darkness like some sort of freak.  Resisting the urge to find your pulse with my fingers.  Thinking about crawling in beside you, sticking to you like some sort of second skin just so I can make sure you are alive.  I’ve become so worried that the blue on your chest is a trick of the mind and I just want to make sure that you are really real.  You always did seem too good to be true, Tony Stark._

”I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she repeats, her voice automated.  “It’s just been a long night.”

There is a moment where the two of them look at each other that she thinks he knows.  That maybe he had caught the way that she keeps looking down at his shirt just to see the shine and knows exactly what she is doing, that she knows it is glad that it is keeping him alive even though it makes every breath hurt him.  That maybe, just maybe, when he watched her press that button, there’s a part of him that blames her a bit for that, too, even though Tony was the one who told her to push it.

Or maybe he just blames himself for what it did to her.   

It’s hard to tell.  There’s more than enough blame to go around for both of them.

”Bad dreams?”  Pepper would have almost thought that he was mocking her, if not for the weary exhaustion in his voice and the fact that he has never been cruel to her.  “Don’t worry.  I get them, too.”  He reaches out to her and pulls her down beside him, takes that hand that is still on her arm and guides her fingers to press down on his chest.   “But we always wake up, don’t we?”  She can feel the heat bleeding out of him and onto her skin.   It’s so hot that it almost burns her but Pepper still does not pull away.  “Don’t we, Pepper?”

It’s another one of his promises.  Another vow that he is not sure that he can keep.  

Pepper doesn’t want to be there to watch the moment when he finally reaches a promise that he has to break, but she still doesn’t leave.  At this point, all they have left to do was stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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